Problem Solver: City responds to EMS billing errors

New vendor considered as ambulance bills never sent out and patients receive collection notices

February 11, 2012|Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?"

Jackie Vossler is trying to get the city to forward her ambulance bill to her private health insurance company after she received a collection notice but never got the original bill. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune)

The city is changing the way it bills patients for emergency medical services and could soon look for new billing vendor, after the Problem Solver questioned the way it handled more than a dozen patients' accounts.

The move comes after the Problem Solver wrote Feb. 5 about errors made on a Chicago woman's account.

The column, which described Jackie Vossler's inability to get a bill for her April 21 ambulance ride, prompted 12 readers to email What's Your Problem? with similar complaints. When the Problem Solver forwarded the emails to the city, a spokesman promised to look into the issue.

On Friday afternoon, Deputy Comptroller Holly Stutz emailed to say the city is considering replacing the vendor that handles the billing, The DeZonia Group.

"In addition to working with our billing vendor to address and correct several customer service and billing issues that have surfaced during the past few months, the Department of Finance is developing a Request For Proposals for these services that will be issued later this year," Stutz said in a statement. "The new RFP will strengthen customer service and billing requirements and associated performance standards to ensure that the issues experienced by several of your readers do not happen again."

Just how many patients have been affected by the billing errors is unclear. The Problem Solver asked Stutz several follow-up questions, but by late Friday she had not responded.

Although DeZonia Group handles the city's EMS billing, another vendor mailed the bills. It was not clear at which stage the billing breakdowns occurred.

In Vossler's case, she was taken by city ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after she fainted at a performance of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Months later, she received a call from the city's Emergency Medical Services asking for her Social Security number, which she refused to give.

When she was told she owed $905 for the April ambulance ride, Vossler asked for a copy of the bill. None was sent, and in December she received a collection notice from Harris & Harris Ltd. on behalf of the city.

In the weeks that followed, Vossler asked the city repeatedly for a bill so she could submit the $905 to her insurance carrier. The bill never arrived, and the city eventually wrote off the balance, angering Vossler.

"Since I didn't pay and since my insurance company hasn't paid, I suppose the citizens of Chicago get to pay," Vossler said at the time. "What really bothers me about this is I would like to know how much money the city of Chicago is leaving on the table."

With the column's publication, readers began emailing the Problem Solver with eerily similar stories.

"When I read the other woman's story, I thought, 'Oh my God, this is exactly what I'm going through,'" said Jennifer Jewell, a Chicago resident who has multiple sclerosis and has been transported by city ambulance several times, sometimes without receiving a bill.

In January, Jewell received a collection letter saying she owed $755 for an ambulance ride in May.

"I'm actually losing sleep about this," she said. "I want all my accounts taken care of, and to know there's something still floating out there kind of freaks me out."

After the Problem Solver forwarded her complaint to the city, a billing representative called her to say her bill would be pulled from collections and sent to her insurance company.

All the people who contacted the Problem Solver said they had insurance but could not submit the Emergency Medical Services charges without an itemized bill from the city. In some cases, the city has waited so long to send a bill that insurance companies will no longer pay.

Tina Menendez said her daughter Madi, then 7, was taken by city ambulance to a hospital on July 8, 2010, after she suffered a possible seizure. Menendez said she remembers an EMS worker taking her insurance information as she rode with Madi, and she assumed the ambulance charges were filed with her insurance.

Menendez said she received no bills from the city until about a month ago, when a collection letter arrived from Harris & Harris. The letter said she owed $1,356 for the July 2010 ride. She immediately called her insurance company, which told her she was too late. Had she had submitted the claim before Dec. 31, 2011, the insurance company would have paid the tab except for a $100 co-pay. Now, she must pay the $1,356 bill herself.

"I realize I am responsible for my portion of the bill, however, I do not feel that I should be obligated for the full $1,300," Menendez said.

Several readers who emailed What's Your Problem? said that since the Vossler column the city has told them it is pulling their bills out of collections and will send itemized bills.

Carrie McAteer-Fournier, who did not receive bills for two ambulance rides her young daughter required in 2010 and 2011, said she called the city several days ago and was told the billing department was inundated with complaints.